“A bargain is a bargain, Mr Hammond; and when one is signed and sealed one generally has to adhere to it.”
“It may be a bargain for you, Rumford, but don’t call it a bargain for me. The entire arrangement was based on the presumption that we should be in the theatre at eight o’clock, and, as we’re not, then the whole thing falls to the ground.”
“An astounding proposition, Mr Hammond! A most astounding proposition!”
Then they all began to talk at once, in tones which did not suggest that they would quickly arrive at a clear and amicable common understanding. It struck me that it was about time for me to say a word. So I said one.
“It seems to me, if I may be allowed to speak—and I really don’t care to hear people bawling in an omnibus, at least not more than two or three at once, unless I am first permitted to get out—I say that it seems to me that you are drawing up the programme of how I am to spend the evening without the slightest reference to my wishes. So far as I understand I am to be passed round and round the theatre, as if I were an old shoe, in a sort of game of hunt-the-slipper.”
“Say, rather, like some priceless jewel, which each desires to regard—though only for a few fleeting moments—as his own.”
“That may sound prettier, Mr Purchase, but the idea does not appeal to me, and I’m not fond of trotting in and out of stalls and boxes.”
“But the arrangement was made, Miss Norah.”
“Really, Mr Carter, you seem to have arrangements on the brain. Have I not already told you that I care nothing for arrangements, whether made or unmade? You are taking me to the theatre at a ridiculously late hour. I cannot understand why you went through the farce of asking me to go if you did not propose to get me there before the performance was over. I exceedingly dislike arriving after the piece has commenced. The least you could do was to manage matters so as to ensure that I didn’t.”
The pause which followed was instinct with the silence of speechlessness. The audacity of my method of presenting the case took those five men’s breath away. I looked into each of their faces with a look which dared them to contradict me. And none of them dared. It was delicious. The idea that if I chose to say that black was white I could induce normally reasonable people to refrain from, at any rate openly, attempting to demonstrate the contrary was a novel one. Yet I could not but feel that such a power might become dangerous if it were carried too far. It would not be pleasant for persons to be compelled to regard chalk as cheese.